Mother
by Koalagriton
Summary: Donatello builds a mutagen tracker to follow Raph when he storms off in a rage but it picks up another signal that isn't his brother's... Set in Turtle-Sketches' universe with Mikey's wife May and their daughter Mabel. Check her tumblr for wonderful mom!turt art. Warning: for feels.


It was almost morning when they brought her home, found completely by chance with the mutagen tracker Donnie used to follow an angry and missing Raph. Two blips on the tracker when there should be one. Their mother. Donnie confirms it quickly with some tests, he'd been worried she was a clone or something but the truth was much more shocking.

Mikey was ecstatic.

He'd dreamed about being reunited with his mother ever since he was a child. Made Mother's Day cards for a ghost because his heart ached for her. They call him with the news the very next day and he shows up in the lair panting and sweaty minutes after running the whole distance at full speed.

It wasn't what he expected. She shies away from his touch, from everyone's once she's strong enough to move around. She barely allows Don to take care of the lacerations on her wrists and feet, the skin raw and scarred from being in shackles for years. Mikey's dream had always been to be enveloped in a loving a hug from his mother and it doesn't look like it will be possible. Ever.

"It's too much stimuli, Mikey." Donatello says after she wailed when Mikey tried to put an arm around her. It takes the rest of the afternoon to try get her to calm down, uncurl and stop rocking back and forth. "She doesn't know what's going on. You need to understand she's been isolated and chained up all of her life. To her, touch is the same as pain."

Mikey sits beside her quietly the rest of the evening, watching her while the others prepare a meal that they'll have to feed her or let her use her hands and then bathe her to get the food off her face, arms and plastron. He's lucky to have her with him, he should be happy he found her, and not crying silently because even though she's _right there_ , the mother he made up in his head, the one he needed so badly in his life doesn't exist.

He should be stronger than this, his mother lived a nightmare and it could have been them but somehow the eggs she had inside of her when she mutated were saved from her terrible fate. If she needed him to keep his distance he would.

Movement brings him out of his thoughts and he realises she's looking at him. She doesn't make eye contact often, doesn't focus her attention for long periods of time on them at all except when she's frightened so this is different. Keeping his eyes on the floor Mikey decides to keep still, closing his eyes for a moment when thin fingers brush the moisture off his cheek.

It probably doesn't mean anything, maybe she was only drawn to the liquid or didn't understand what was happening but that simple touch comforts him so much he can still feel it ghosting over his skin when presses a palm to his face as he's leaving for his home to May and Mabel that night.

* * *

Mikey begins with small things, tiny, harmless touches: a brief caress on the back of her hand, a soft smooch on her cheek every morning when he arrives or before leaving. She usually pulls her hands away, shifts them enough to not be touching or tilts her face to keep looking at whatever she was doing if he gets in the way. He might not be achieving anything but the brief contact warms Mikey.

One morning as he's leaning down to give her a peck on the cheek she makes a kissing sound with her mouth as if she was expecting to be kissed by her son, waiting for it, wanting it. The others don't believe him when he tells them.

Before he leaves that night he offers her his cheek first and smiles wildly when she closes the small distance and kisses him herself. It was a bit sloppy, a bit wet and much too brief but he feels loved and he's grinning and happy when he gets home that night.

His brothers start kissing her every morning.

* * *

Mikey gets a call from a distraught Donatello some days later. He can hear Mom upset in the background.

"She fell." Donnie explains through the noise. "She hurt her arm but won't let anyone near her, she's so agitated. I know it's still daylight out but could you-" He doesn't have to hear the end of the sentence before he's out the door and on his way to the lair.

He arrives at the lair to wailing. Leo and Raph are trying to restrain her gently so that Don can have a look at her wrist. They look up when he enters and she takes advantage of the momentary distraction to wiggle free. They are surprised when she goes straight to Mikey, whimpering with huge tearful eyes and presenting him with her inflamed wrist.

Mikey reacts automatically, leaning down to take her in his arms and the familiarity of the situation strikes Mikey suddenly when she lets him pick her up and hold her curled against him while Don puts some ointment on her wrist. He recalls hundreds of similar moments in which he went through these actions, these same feelings when Mabel was a baby. She can't give him love the way Mikey wanted and it breaks him a little to know she probably doesn't even realise he is her son and what that means to him but she needs him now, like Mabel used to need him.

He can do this for her, he'll do it forever if she needs this from him, so he cradles her in his arms, rocking her gently until she calms down with a soft smile on his lips.


End file.
